---
title: And now that she was able to open her mouth and speak, she told the… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And now that she was able to open her mouth and speak, she told the King why she had been dumb and not able to laugh. Who acts: sister. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 92

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And now that she was able to open her mouth and speak, she told the King why she had been dumb and not able to laugh.

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**Who acts:** sister · **What happens:** be, open, speak, tell, not be, laugh · **To what, where:** mouth, King · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sister), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg540:41:92
# text = And now that she was able to open her mouth and speak, she told the King why she had been dumb and not able to laugh.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	open	open	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	speak	speak	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	iobj	_	_
18	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	22	advmod	_	_
19	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	22	cop	_	_
22	dumb	dumb	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	ccomp	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
24	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	conj	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | sister |  |  |  | now | able *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **open** | to-infinitive | sister *not said here* | sister's mouth |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location mouth=Theme |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* | present | sister *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | sister |  | the King |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent king=Recipient |
| 5 | **is** | past · perfect | sister |  |  |  |  | dumb *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **not** **be** |  | sister *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **laugh** | to-infinitive | sister *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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